Blackberry Nectarine Buckle

When I was little, my favorite thing to give my mom for holidays was a good old cookbook. I liked shopping for them and I got excited about the delicious looking pictures inside. It sure beat a calendar...

One year, I gave her a William Sonoma Cookbook about picnics. I don't think we went on many picnics but we could have these things for lunch and on the weekends. The only recipe I actually remember though is the Blackberry Nectarine Buckle--which is like a cake and crumb topping filled with fruit. I remember loving that dessert whenever we had fresh blackberries in excess to make it.

I found a copy of the recipe in my stores and decided to make it again now that it's summer and there are blackberries and nectarines at the markets. I brought 99% of this dessert into the office after seeing the uh, calorie count on the recipe and I didn't like it nearly as much as I remember. However, at work it was a BIG hit. So if you were going to make Paula Dean's butter cake anyway (you know, the closest calorie count I can think of), skip it, and throw together a little buckle. This recipe in the book says to cut the final product into 6-8 pieces. It is a 9x13 pan, so I think we can safely assume we can get more like 30 pieces and, therefore, cut those ridiculous calorie counts into bits at the same time.

P.S. I'm pretty sure even I could lighten this recipe up if I really wanted to, but wouldn't it be a great feature for cooking light?

Ingredients

1/2 C Coarsely chopped pecans

2 1/2 C flour

1/2 C firmly packed brown sugar

1 C granulated sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

pinch of ground nutmeg

pinch ground ginger + 1/2 t ground ginger

1 C unsalted butter

1 egg

2 t baking powder

1/4 C milk

80z blackberries

3 nectarines, peeled, pitted and cut into 1/4 in pieces

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 9x13 inch baking dish. Spread pecans on a different rimmed baking sheet and toast lightly 5-7 min.

2. In a bowl, combine pecans, 1/2C flour, brown sugar, 1/4C granulated sugar, the cinnamon, the nutmeg and the pinch of ginger. Cut in 1/2 C of butter (in small pieces) into mixture and blend with fingertips until crumbly. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together remaining butter and sugar. Add egg and beat until combined. In another bowl combine remaining flour, baking powder and 1/2t ginger. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture until combined.

4. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Top with nectarines and blackberries. Cover fruit with crumb topping. Bake 45-55 minutes until skewer comes out clean. Let cool in the pan and then cut into squares.